rom
the balcony occupied by the city pipers and musicians, long before
Biberli entered it, with the same fanfare that welcomed the illustrious
guests of the city, and with which blended the blare of the heralds'
trumpets. Thousands of candles in the chandeliers and candelabra diffused
a radiance as brilliant as that of day and, confused by the noise and
waves of light which surged around her, she had drawn closer to her
father, clinging to him for protection. She especially missed her sister,
with whom she had grown up, who had become her second self, and whom she
needed most when she emerged from her quiet life of introspection into
the gay world.

At first she had stood with downcast lashes, but soon her eyes wandered
over the waving plumes and flashing jewels, the splendour of silk and
velvet, the glitter of gold and glimmer of pearls.

Sometimes the display in church had been scarcely less brilliant, and
even without her sister's request she had gazed at it, but how entirely
different it was! There she had rejoiced in her own modest garb, and told
herself that her simplicity was more pleasing to God and the saints than
the vain splendour of the others, which she might so easily have imitated
or even surpassed. But here the anxious question of how she appeared
among the rest of the company forced itself upon her.

True, she knew that the brocade suckenie, which her father had ordered
from Milan, was costly; that the sea-green hue of the right side
harmonised admirably with the white on the left; that the tendrils and
lilies of the valley wrought in silver, which seemed to be scattered over
the whole, looked light and airy; yet she could not shake off the feeling
that everything she wore was in disorder--here something was pulled awry,
there something was crushed. Els, who had attended to her whole toilet,
was not there to arrange it, and she felt thoroughly uncomfortable in the
midst of this worldly magnificence and bustle.

Notwithstanding her father's presence, she had never been so desolate as
among these ladies and gentlemen, nearly all of whom were strangers.

Her sister was intimate with the other girls of her age and station, few
of whom were absent, and if Eva could have conjured her to her side
doubtless many would have joined them; but she knew no one well, and
though many greeted her, no one lingered. Everybody had friends with whom
they were on far more familiar terms. The young Countess von Montfort,